Keene Valley, NY –  On Tuesday, October 24, Keene Valley Congregational Church will screen the Regional Emmy award-winning documentary Return to Auschwitz: The Survival of Vladimir Munk at 7 p.m. at the Keene Valley Public Library.

The PBS documentary was filmed in 2020 when Czech Holocaust survivor Vladimir Munk returned to Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camps in Poland where he was imprisoned during World War II. Accompanied by filmmakers/producers Julie Canepa, Paul Frederick and Bruce Carlin, 95-year-old Munk made the journey to honor thirty of his close relatives, including his parents, who perished there.

Munk was liberated at the war’s end and returned to Poland where he married, started a family, and earned a doctorate in biochemistry and microbiology. In 1968, as the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact countries began invading Czechoslovakia, he accepted an invitation to join the faculty of SUNY Plattsburgh where he taught Microbiology and Biochemistry for 21 years.

He died peaceably at age 98 in Plattsburgh on September 30, 2023.

Julie Canepa will engage in a Q&A with the audience following the screening and sell and sign copies of her debut novel, The Missing Star, based on the life and love story of Vladimir Munk and his wife Kitty Löwi.

The Rev. John Sampson, pastor of Keene Valley Congregational Church, will share personal reflections on his visit to Auschwitz while on sabbatical leave in 2022.

Photo at top provided by Martha Swan, Mission & Social Action Committee, Keene Valley Congregational Church.